Saturday come to Big Bear Cafe located at 1st and R St in the District if you ain't doing nothin' Saturday night (around 6:30-7ish). It's just a small gathering before I head on off to Sweden it would be cool to see as many of y'all as possible before I move. (Bring booze n food if ya want...but bringing baby stuff would be make me think higher of you!)

I know I haven't posted any reviews for a while. There have actually been a handful of albums I've wanted to rave about for some time but just haven't really had the time to do so.

I was hoping to do a mid-year report card back when it was actually the middle of the year but, well, it just wasn't meant to be. So here is a bit of a late-year list of music I dig a lot.

1. Microcastles/Weird Era Cont. by Deerhunter.
I'd heard the name Deerhunter when they first started blowing up but honestly, in this day and age if you're an indie band and you have an animal in your name you're going to have to accept the fact that there are many of us who will simply overlook you based solely on your name. Well I'm sorry I did. I've only heard a few bits and pieces of the band's critically lauded Cryptograms and I knew that the buzz for Microcastles was pretty strong. It's pretty well-deserved.

While it's pretty obvious where the band gets its inspiration (Velvet Underground, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth to name a few) it should be noted, though, that by no means are Deerhunter ripping off the masters. Anyone can mimic any other band and the good ones can get away with it. The thing that Deerhunter has going for it is a frighteningly strong sense of songcraft. Microcastle works because of some very densely layered and well constructed songs.

The middle of the album consists of a handful of dreamy, abstract ambient sounding tracks that, depending on your tastes, either drags the album down or allows you to catch your breath. Either way, it keeps listeners on their toes as to what's coming next. Based on what I've heard from Deerhunter (as well as lead singer Bradford Cox's side project Atlas Sound, see below) I get the sense that they are completely of the moment and while that early 90's sound is what they sound like now, it's probably not something that their married to. I think this is an immensely talented band who will continue to thrill us for years to come.

2. Dear Science, - TV on the Radio
I don't know what more to say about TVOTR. I think they're amazing. I love the completely unexpected direction of this album. Although at this point with TV on the Radio I think the unexpected IS the expected and I think that's great. Up until now the band's music had a darkness to it. Yet some of the band's best songs are boosted not by melancholy but by exuberance. Look at the practically shouted vocals of Return to Cookie Mountain's "Wolf Like Me" or shoot, just see them live. They don't just put on rock shows, TVOTR concerts can come awfully close to goin to "chutch" (that's "church" for you yankees.) So the fact that Dear Science, is so much fun to listen to should come as no surprise. I'll admit, the record has yet to overwhelm me like Return... but it's just so vibrant and full of -- and you'll have to excuse the word I'm about to use but -- it's so full of hope.

Speaking of "hope" I realized Saturday night while listening to this on the way home that Dear Science feels more and more to me like a Bruce Springsteen record than anything else. Not that it sounds even remotely like anything the Boss and his E Street hombres have done. I just mean it's a big full BAND album full of big ideas and expressions of love and life. This is TV on the Radio's Born in the USA. It's weird, the impact the Boss has had on the indie music scene recently. Arcade Fire practically made a Springsteen album with Neon Bible, the Hold Steady has that bar band thing going for them. Jesse Malin, Ted Leo even the National regularly work Springsteen covers into their sets. But I digress...

3. You & Me - The Walkmen
I don't want to say too much about this album but if you're a Walkmen fan then this is the album you've been waiting for the band to release from the get go. This is the one that perfectly balances the hungover daze of the first album with the mean drunk vigor of the second. I use drinking analgies because that's the best way to describe the Walkmen. Their best songs remind you of or are flat out about the days of being young, broke, drunk and in lust. They make the music of your late twenties. If you're not thirty yet the Walkmen will remind you that it's right around the corner and if you've already passed that threshold then the Walkmen won't let you forget the past (or the present.)

The band is as tight here as they've ever been. Every musical decision is the exact right one, there's not a false note to be found anywhere. Nothing's overdone and nothing too understated. Nuance is the word to remember. This is an album where the little things stick out just as much if not more as the big ones.

Going back to the drinking analogy, where previous Walkmen albums were one-night stands or maybe even a f*ckbuddy, You & Me is the one you take home to meet the folks.

4. Third - Portishead
I already wrote about this and as you can see, I clearly don't stand by my initial response. Nevertheless it is November and I still find myself in awe of this album. The fact that it exists is kind of remarkable. I listen to it now and I'm still struck by its jagged edges, it's coarseness. Yes, it is a very hard to swallow Portishead album but it's still rewarding. I don't know, I wouldn't listen to it if it sounded like Dummy, I'd just listen to Dummy. If you want to hear Portishead as they sound now then this is it, take it or leave it. I just think in this case you have to take into account how much time has past since their second album. Barrow, Gibbons and Utley are all signifcantly older now and the same things don't interest them that interested them at the beginning. It's perfectly logical that with such a long layoff that there's no possible way Phead could come back with Dummy II. THAT would've been an even bigger let down.

5. New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) - Erykah Badu
I don't know if Erykah Badu will ever get the credit she deserves in this day and age. That may be a good thing because she's commercially viable enough to command the kind of creative freedom so few have. There are three names I think of when I consider the music of Ms. Badu: OutKast, Nina Simone and Bob Dylan. That's it. She's got the sensuality and attitude of Nina Simone, the otherworldy future-funk of OutKast and the restlessness and seemingly complete aversion to being put into any one box that has defined Dylan's career. In fact, that last statement can be applied to the others as well.

There's no better descriptor for Erykah Badu than her own: "analog girl in a digital world." She's 8 track in the era of the iPod. She's both old school and new school and that's exactly how she wants it.

The Best of the Rest (so far): In No Particular Order of Preference
Ghosts I-IV - Nine Ince Nails
Belly - Food for Animals
Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel - Atlas Sound
Feed the Animals - Girl Talk
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Nouns - No Age
Shallow Grave - Tallest Man on Earth (he's Swedish by the way)
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Tha Carter III - Lil Wayne (okay fine, I get it now)
The Dreamers - John Zorn
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
untitled - Nas
Fate - Dr. Dog
Rising Down - The Roots
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Mixtape About Nothing - Wale

So the Monday before the biggest election of my lifetime I get what will hopefully be the first part of some pretty flippin' sweet news (the second part of course being the potential electoral victory of the Junior Senator from Illinois in his presidential bid.)

I am now SWEDISH! Yay Socialism!

Now I just gotsta work out the legistics of my move but most likely in about two and a half weeks, yahmobewaaaaayyyoverthere. If there are any going away festivities I'll post the details here.

So the Monday before the biggest election of my lifetime I get what will hopefully be the first part of some pretty flippin' sweet news (the second part of course being the potential electoral victory of the Junior Senator from Illinois in his presidential bid.)

I am now SWEDISH! Yay Socialism!

Now I just gotsta work out the legistics of my move but most likely in about two and a half weeks, yahmobewaaaaayyyoverthere. If there are any going away festivities I'll post the details here.

So this was in my inbox this mornin':

Sender's Name: Chris Xxxxx
Sender's e-Mail: chris@xxxxx.com
Subject: Random Curiosity
Sent via http://www.killoggs.com/feedback/

Message: Hi - you don't know me but I was hoping you might be able to shed a
little light on a mystery for me. A couple of months ago I bought at house,
which appears to have been the site of a concert at the end of 2005 that you
posted here: http://www.killoggs.com/calendar/?event=530

Do you happen to remember that concert? Did you attend? Living in that house
right now I can't imagine how you would try to hold a concert in it...anyway,
just random curiosity. If you remember anything and happen to have a minute to
shed some light on it, I'd love to hear from you. Otherwise, thanks for your
time.

As of now I have not written back yet but since I didn't actually attend that show nor was I ever able to make it out to any of the "Dragon House" shows, I'm not really sure what I could say.

Come on, you know you love it too.

Hey Killoggs!

I know it's been a long time since I posted well, anything on here. Sorry, my computer caught a bug and is temporarily (permanently?) on the fritz. So I can only get to the internets sparingly from my girlfriend's laptop.

Speaking of girlfriends. I have one. She's awesome. She's Swedish and there's one small detail I'm forgetting....

What was it?

Hmmm....

Oh yeah that's right, she's pregnant!

Yep, you read it right. I'm gonna be a daddy in about six months. At first it frightened the bejesus out of me. Every once and a while it still frightens the bejesus out of me. But what's done is done right? We're happy. There's a slim chance that I may move to Sweden cuz, well they have a bomb @$$ health care system.

Do I want to leave DC? Not really. My friends are here, my family's here. But the move (if/when it happens) wouldn't be permanent it's just that things would be way easier from a financial standpoint in Sverige. So that's what's up.

Questions?

Comments?

Album. Of. The. Year.

Okay, that's a bit hyperbolic but the claim is based largely on the fact that this band took ten years off and came back with a record that very easily could have just been another Portishead album that relied on the sound they're already known for. Nope. That's not what they did at all. While a return to the Portishead sound of old would have been welcomed with open arms, that just wasn't in the cards for Geoff Barrow, Adrian Utley and Beth Gibbons. I'm sure the fact that "trip-hop" the genre they helped lay the blueprint for has long since died had something to with the direction the band has taken the P'head sound.

What Portishead did was simply intentionally destroy the "Portishead sound." Obliterate it. If you thought Dummy and Portishead were melancholy affairs then Third is flat out apocalyptic. This album is ugly, it's nasty, it's unpleasant, it's uneven. It's a jarring slap in the face from a band absolutely DARING you to play this in the coffee shop you may work in. (Which is EXACTLY what I'm going to do!) This is NOT background music. This is the soundtrack to the end of our days, and it absolutely rocks.

No preamble, here's the list:

1. Rosario Dawson
2. Scarlett Johannson.
3. Zooey Deschanel
4. M.I.A.
5. Lindsay Lohan (this one is quasi NSFWish)

I'm beginning to wonder if anyone is EVER going to knock Rosey out of the top spot. It's going to take Rosey declaring herself a card-carrying Republican, being caught not only molesting children but running a dog-fighting ring AND her calling Martin Scorsese a hack for me to CONSIDER taking her out of the top spot.

That or my marriage to any of the other four ladies on the list.

Maybe.

Well, I was going to post a one word review for There Will be Blood but the Killoggs told me my post was too short. So I'm basically babbling on trying to flesh this thing out enough so that the Killoggs administrator won't yell at me for making a post that's too short.

Okay, enough lollygagging.

Here's my general impression of the new Paul Thomas Anderson flick There Will Be Blood:

Wow. Just, wow.

Hate to be all blowin' up the front page but, well, why not? I was going to wait until January to post a Best Music of 2K7 list because there are a couple of late releases I have not heard. Oh well. This may be the last time I do this in a 1-2-3 format anyway, I may name a favorite but then I'll just list other albums I dig without preference. Anyway here goes:

1. Radiohead - In Rainbows
2. M.I.A. - Kala
3. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
4. Battles - Mirrored
5. Jay-Z - American Gangster
6. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
7. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - Magic
8. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
9. The White Stripes - Icky Thump
10. Pissed Jeans - Hope for Men

11. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
12. Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
13. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
14. Pharoahe Monch - Desire
15. Liars - Liars
16. K-Os - Atlantis: Hymns for Disco
17. Kanye West - Graduation
18. Feist - The Reminder
19. Dr. Dog - We All Belong
20. Norah Jones - Not Too Late
21. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder
22. Interpol - Our Love to Admire
23. !!! - Myth Takes
24. King Wilkie - Low Country Suite
25. Common - Finding Forever

I'm probably forgetting some but honestly if they were that good wouldn't I remember them? (No not really, there probably are some I really am forgetting.)
There are three hip-hop albums that all came out in the last three weeks that I haven't heard (Wu-Tang, Ghostface and Lupe Fiasco) I'll just do a "stuff I missed" list in a few months.

There were some albums that I had high expectations for that really disappointed me (Ryan Adams, Lucinda Williams) and some that are high on other lists that I'm just not totally impressed by. Bright Eyes' Cassadaga comes to mind. It's a solid and mature album but it also feels very plain. It doesn't have the immediacy of I'm Wide Awake... or the bombast of The Story's in the Soil.... I also feel I should like The National more than I do. I don't DISLIKE them I guess I wasn't in the right frame of mind when I heard The Boxer and never gave it a second chance. Dan Deacon is another one I just didn't really get. I heard it while working at R&TT but...I don't know. I think I will like get into it somewhere down the road.

I'm going to say this now just to have it on record. Don't be surprised if Juno wins the Oscar for Best Picture.

This isn't really a prediction but just me preparing you for what could be the biggest Oscar upset since at least Shakespeare In Love. I know all the press and critics and even some of us here on this very site have declared No Country for Old Men to be this year's cinematic triumph. Yet as I sit here one day removed from seeing Juno I can't help but notice how much I'm still thinking about it. This plucky little comedy about a sixteen-year-old pregnant hipster-to-be could very well be the best movie I've seen all year.

The Academy Awards haven't even been announced but if you've followed the clippings (or saw the list of Golden Globe noms) then you know who the favorites are and Juno is among them. While it seems to occupy the Little Miss Sunshine slot which means there's no way it should, win my thought process says that we've seen big plodding dramas like Atonement or the looks freakin' brilliant There Will be Blood before and we'll see them again. Those kind of movies always do well come awards time while the little indie darlings like LMS or Sideways are destined to walk away with no better than Best Screenplay.

So why could it be different this year? Why should it be Juno? It should be Juno because unlike previous Best Picture winner American Beauty this movie uses cynicism as a front for the sentimentality coursing just underneath the surface of its early moments. Unlike Beauty or Sunshine the focus isn't on the dysfunction of the families but on the function. For a country in which the phrase "family values" is little more than a campaign slogan, here's a film that puts them on full display but does so with hidden grace rarely seen in American cinema.

It's fairly easy to watch this movie and listen to the words coming out of Juno's (soon to be Oscar winner Ellen Page -- that, by the way, is a prediction) mouth and feel like it's just the screenwriter (a.k.a. my newest crush Diablo Cody) cranking out all the one-liners she could think of. It's easy to say that no teenager really talks like that but if you really look at the movie and look at the character, her wise-beyond-her-years speech is a mask for the naivete with which she acts.

This movie should win Best Picture because of the suprising attention to detail given to the dynamics of the relationship between not only Juno and her own parents but also the relationship she forms with the couple she chooses to adopt her baby. First of all, her parents react with just the right amount of suprise and disappointment when Juno tells them of her pregnancy but more importantly they react like...parents. As in they recognize that she may have a smart mouth but she's still a teenager and teenagers tend to do really stupid things. Throughout the movie it's obvious that Juno's father and stepmother genuinely care for her and support her through what is a life-altering screw up. Look at the scene where Juno goes to get her ultrasound: The scene starts off very tender and sweet but quickly turns nasty when the ultrasound tech makes a condescending remark. Juno's stepmother (Allison Janney) steps right in and puts the woman in her place. In my experience that's what parents do, they stick up for you even when you're in the hottest of waters. (May I also note that in most other movies the filmmakers would play up the whole stepdaughter-stepmother rivalry but at no point does that come into play here. A wise choice.)

The biggest surprise to me was the fascinating relationship forged by Juno with the Pennysaver-selected couple who will be the baby's adopted parents. On the surface they appear to be your typical yuppie couple with their nice uppity suburban house and carefully selected furnishings. As we get to know each of them, though, they reveal themselves to be quite different from our initial interpretations. Once Juno discovers that the husband (Jason Bateman) is a reformed rock-n-roller the two bond over punk rock, horror movies, mix CD's and comic books. Meanwhile Bateman's wife (Jennifer Garner!) appears to be stuffy and a bit controlling at first glance. As the movie progresses, however, we not only learn that Bateman may not be as cool as he initially appeared and there's a very tender scene with Garner and Page in a mall that reveals just how much she's ready for motherhood. I'd like to get into this a little bit more but I'll wait until more of you have seen it.

In the end, it's easy to look at the hipness of the film's dialogue, soundtrack choices and pop culture references and dismiss it as another Garden State or Ghost World but it's more original than the former and sweeter than the latter. Yes I said it. It's a sweet movie but don't worry, it never really overdoes it. It's a feel good movie but at no point does it attempt to overwhelm you with sentimentality. Juno works because it properly replicates human nature's tendency to produce unnecessary drama and the levity we could all use to guide us through our mistakes.

Y'know, you troll the I Saw You ads and the Missed Connections ads week after week, month after month, year after year just waiting for that one time that MAYBE somebody out there finds you (or someone you know) somewhat interesting and it just never happens.

Or does it?

I saw the Bob Dylan quasi-biopic I'm Not There tonight. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's a great movie--although it's not a bad one by any means. What it is, though, is a great concept just about perfectly executed. A straightforward biopic about Bob Dylan really would not work. Dylan has entrenched himself so deeply into the culture of America for the last thirty plus years that a different approach was necessary to tell his story.

So what director Todd Haynes did was do a movie about the myth of Dylan rather than the life of Dylan. By blurring the lines of fact and fiction (which is what Dylan has done his entire career anyway) Haynes managed to form what I felt was a really daggone accurate portrayal of the legend of Dylan. When I first heard about this film I felt like the whole getting different actors to play Bob Dylan was somewhat of a gimmick. Again, though, if you think about it there's really no other way to have done it (at least no other way to have done it that would have been nearly as fascinating.)

It is pretty interesting, though, the thought of an abstract biographical film. There's really no structure, it's just a portrait of the impact of one man. It paints the perfect picture as to what it was that made (makes) Dylan what he is. It explains his mythology perfectly without ever really bothering to explain anything. Either you get it, or you're not listening.

Is I'm Not There essential viewing? Not really. As far as rock biopics go I'd rank Control slightly above this one. If you're a Dylan afficianado then definitely go see it. I'd recommend, however, that you go with someone who isn't a Dylan fan, if only because it could spark a very spirited discourse.

(Watching ths movie made me start thinking about which rock/music icons would be just as equally difficult to tackle as Bod Dylan. The Beatles? Bruce Springsteen? The Velvet Underground? David Bowie? One could make a case that the Haynes-directed Velvet Goldmine was a Bowie biopic but it's more of a portrait of the entire glam era. On the flipside there are some acts that are dying to be immortalized on the big screen. Guns N Roses is the first that comes to mind.)

Just a week before Thanksgiving my sister and our family got some very disturbing news. One of her childhood friends was killed in a one-car accident (as detailed in the first item listed here.)

Here's the deal with my little sis, once you become her friend you instantly gain one older brother and two extra parents absolutely free of charge. So when I got the call from my dad a few days ago about Meagan's accident my heart dropped. I'm not one to sit around moping all the time and what's made me feel worse is not that she is no longer with us but I can't stop thinking about how broken up her parents must be. Meagan was their only child and I can't possibly imagine what it feels like to lose the single most important person of the last 23 years of their lives.

I don't want to really get into too much more about that here. It's just that with Thanksgiving being a few days away I wanted to say don't wait for some phoney-baloney holiday to come along to be thankful. Be thankful now. I ain't preaching here, I haven't found religion or anything but sometimes we get so caught up in our day-to-day routines that we do forget to appreciate the people we know, the places we've been, the experience we've gained and the time we've shared.

So many times we've used Killoggs to voice our frustration over a girl, a guy, a job, a co-worker whatever and quite frankly I think that's a good thing. For once, though, I'm not going to use this space to moan about something that hasn't gone my way. I am using this space to say to each and every one of you whether I've broken bread with you in person or not: thank you. That's all. Just thank you. Even if it's only been through the magic of the internet I appreciate the chance to bond with all of you anyway.

Again, I say thank you.

Now I'm writing this based solely on hearsay but given my brief experience with the company, if the following is true then I'm honestly not surprised.

So the two dudes that own my former employer -- let's call them Kevin Smolen and Steve Stander (not their actual names but with a little research you'll see exactly what changes I made) -- sold the company that they've owned jointly for thirty years apparently a little while ago. Nothing wrong with that, it's their company they can do what they want.

Here's the part that sucks they just told their employees of the sale this week and as of tomorrow everyone that works in the company's warehouse will be out of a job. They were just informed of this YESTERDAY. Now I don't remember how many people usually worked at the warehouse but it was too big a chunk to just dump on the street like this with no warning. They didn't tell them of this because they didn't want everyone quitting.

I can't believe this. I've also heard that the Owings Mills store is closing but I have not yet heard about what will happen to the remaining 8(?) stores. I was only with the company for a year and I had my issues with the way it was run but I also met a ton of cool people and none of them deserve this.

Like I said, it's the owners' company and theoretically they can do what they want. But at the same time, they owe it to everyone working there who worked hard (for very little money) who helped stuff their fat wallets to at least give them time to find new jobs. If all of what I've heard and printed here is true then I have to say I am completely disgusted that I was ever associated with this company. Again, I wish all the best to the staff and hope whomever is not retained (IF anybody is retained) is able to quickly find gainful employment.

In the meantime I'm removing Record & Tape Traders from my resume (and taking the stupid 30th Anniversary celebration bumper sticker off my car.) I'm also amending my title: The Owners of Record & Tape Traders SUCK.

I've seen many movies in my life. Yet, I can think of only a handful where I walked out of the theater and the only word that came to mind was "wow."

Control is one of those movies. Control is the best rock biopic since Sid & Nancy. It is beautifully shot, brilliantly acted and perfectly written. It's incredibly depressing but then it's a movie about Ian Curtis and Joy Division so of course it's depressing. It's one of the heaviest and dreariest movies I've ever seen and yet I absolutely love it. I can't think of any movie I've seen recently that hits you in the gut like this one does. Maybe Monster or Boys Don't Cry.

I really hope the Oscars don't look past this one because Control is one of the extremely few movies that have come out in recent times that I would call an undeniable masterpiece. It is absolutely briliant. It's so powerful that I felt the need to come home and drink every bit of alcohol I could find. For the record I'm writing this after three(?) PBR's, two shots of whiskey and a glass of wine. Yes it's THAT kind of movie. In fact, if you were planning on seeing it then get drunk first THEN see Control, it'll sober you up real quick.

I'm not really going to get into the distribution of Radiohead's latest album because that's been pretty well covered every where else. Let's talk about the music.

In Rainbows is the best album Radiohead has ever made...

...this decade.

Honestly though, I had been debating whether or not to leave that sentence as is. There's a part of me that very much wants to make that statement and there are several reasons why. As great as they've been, I'm not totally sure if we've ever heard Thom Yorke and co. sound as relaxed and completely at ease as they do here. That doesn't mean that they've grown complacent either, they can't afford to.

The fact of the matter is there are plenty of other bands/acts that are of equal talent and perhaps even relevance. Wilco, OutKast, Bjork, Beck and the Flaming Lips are all part of Radiohead's particular generation and each have masterpieces of their own. Not to mention up and coming acts like Battles, TV on the Radio, Liars, Animal Collective and My Morning Jacket are all tugging on Radiohead's cape. That doesn't even take into account bands like Coldplay and Muse who both should send Radiohead a check for every album they release (I say this knowingly being a big Muse supporter.)

The point of all this is that as symbolic an album as Kid A was it's very quickly become somewhat dated. The artistic direction the band took with that album was pretty significant and they should be commended for so consciously abandoning that which established their stature in the first place. Kid A and Amnesiac both contain great music but the thing we really love Radiohead for in the first place isn't only great music but great songs. "Idioteque" and "National Anthem" are both pretty awesome but they lose their appeal once you try to find any emotional connection to them. "Optimistic" is good as well but its paranoia was better explored on just about every other Radiohead single that came before it.

Hail to the Thief saw the return to a more song-based album but perhaps one that was about two to four songs too long. It was also the first glimpse we received of a melding of the two sides of Radiohead. It was also the first spark of emotion to return to the band with melancholy being somewhat replaced by political outrage. I think the disappointment surrounding Thom Yorke's underrated solo outing, The Eraser, has more to do with its continued exploration of electronica than actual quality. I think as a companion piece to everything else Radiohead had done, The Eraser sits quite nicely. It's not a world-beater but we probably should not have expected it to be. The album's true importance, however, became significant last Wednesday.

The Eraser just may have been Thom Yorke's way of working on his own electronic tinkerings so that the rest of the band could get back to being just that, a band. As a band they could return to what they do best and better than most others, make songs. That's where the comfort comes in to play.

With this album Radiohead was free to just make an album. Their contract with Capitol had ended, there was no pressure to follow up one of the greatest albums ever and due largely to their own efforts the band's stature had somewhat diminished recently. Somewhere amongst all this Radiohead rememembered how to be a band again. On In Rainbows there's almost a playful tone to the album. Lyrically the song's aren't that different but tonally there's a huge difference. The angst, the anxiety, the paranoia, the melancholy all seem to be somewhat exorcised.

It's hard to explain. This album doesn't feel like any Radiohead album they've ever made but at least it feels like something. It's not cold and distant, it's warm and inviting like a cup of tea. The songs are just as long as they need to be and they're superbly textured. Shut out the rest of the world and listen to In Rainbows with a pair of headphones on and you'll see what I mean.

I still want very badly to say that In Rainbows is the best album Radiohead has ever made but I won't. Instead, I'll re-phrase the sentence with a different word that will lend it a different sort of gravitas. It's a word that seems to be the best fit for everything I said in the previous stanza. More importantly, it's a word that will set In Rainbows apart from the epic stature of either The Bends or OK Computer.

In Rainbows is the most intimate album the band has ever made. And for a band that's based an entire career on NOT being able to connect, that may be the greatest gesture ever.

Bibbly i don't have access to the internet in my new place just yet. Some stuff got lost during 1 of my moves. Im actually making this post from my phone. The full review is coming soon. I will say that I love this album a great deal and have listened to it extensively.

The dang title of this movie is so long it doesn't even fit in the subject line. Anyway, I saw this joint last Saturday and walked away with decidedly mixed feelings. On one hand, I thought this was one of the most remarkable and dynamic films (of any genre) that I've seen in a while. On the other hand I thought it was one of the most bloated and pretentious wankfests I've seen in a long time. There were times where I wanted to throw something at the screen and there were times where I wished everyone else in the theater would just leave so that I could be alone with this stunning film.

I think in the end, my positive reactions outweigh my negative ones. That's a tribute to the beautiful camera work, the outstanding performances and the simple poetry and grace of the entire piece. The Assassination of Jesse James... is equal parts Babel and Unforgiven. It's also reminds me of another film I still haven't been able to put a finger on three days later.

I mean, we know by the simple title of the movie that Brad Pitt's Jesse James will be dead by the end of the movie. How the story works is that we spend the course of the movie both wishing him dead and wanting him to somehow survive. The true revelation is Casey Affleck as Robert Ford (a.k.a. if for some godawful reason someone decides to make a movie about one Mr. Josh, I nominate either Casey Affleck or Mark Ruffalo to play the title character.) Big brother Ben may have the bigger profile but it appears little brother got the acting chops -- side note: Ben Affleck is actually an incredibly bright guy and I think we'll see his true calling is as a director with his film Gone Baby Gone (also starring Casey.)
Casey's Ford, kinda like Norman Bates so many years ago and like Charlize Theron's Aileen Vuornos in Monster more recently is effective in both creeping us out and evoking our sympathy (the former more than the latter.)

There's more I really want to say but honestly (even at three hours) I feel like I've got to sit through it again. Nevertheless, it's encouraging to see two very smart and well-done westerns released just a few months apart. Is it the start of a trend? Probably not. Either way, TAoJJbtCRF is more than anything a true work of art. I'm hesitant to use the word "masterpiece" but it's a remarkable piece of filmmaking, period.